North Collins fall short in Class D regional

Kyle Loretto (24) of North Collins attempts to tag out a Notre Dame runner at first base in the Class D Far West Regional championship game. Photo by Marquel Slaughter.

North Collins made the baseball program’s third trip to the Class D Far West Regionals on June 7.

The Eagles outscored their Section VI opponents by 27 runs in their three postseason games where they captured the Section VI title, but weren’t able to muster up enough of an offensive attack against Notre Dame (Section V), falling 9-2 at Russell Diethrick Park in Jamestown.

North Collins was down two runs before tying it, 2-2 at the bottom of the fourth inning.

Chris Pulinski scored on an error to third base for North Collins’ first run.Austin Winter scored next, working a walk and scoring when the Irish threw an error to first, placing David Fera on base and giving Winter plenty of time to attack the plate.

However, those two runs in the fourth was all the Eagles were able to gather, as the Fighting Irish scored seven unanswered runs the rest of the way.

“That was the backbreaker,” said North Collins head coach Paul Kellner. “We got the momentum. We had ‘Uncle Mo’ in our dugout, as we like to call it. We tie it, 2-2, and at this point, we didn’t have a hit yet. We’re thinking the bats are going to come out at some point, and then they came back.”

“I think they put a two-spot on us at the top of the next inning. That really hurt us. It kind of deflated us, morally. We tried to fight back, but like I said, their pitcher was the difference.”

Alec Covel earned the win in the circle for Notre Dame, throwing a no hitter and giving up just one hit in his complete game.

He also struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced.

Jake Jasinski collected the lone hit for the Eagles.

David Lynch started on the mound for North Collins. He was relieved by Dylan Winter and Austin Winter in the seventh inning.